Superhero Card

I just received a nice little package from Papertrey Ink the other day and was super excited because as a grandmother to two little guys I knew I needed their stamp and die set that is superhero inspired.

I already had the city die from Taylored Expression so I knew these two were going to be a match made in heaven.

I am looking forward to using these stamps and dies in layouts, future cards and maybe in a few craft projects as well. Perfect set for little ones.

Masculine Cards

I have a slew of birthdays coming up in February and they are all for guys. I don't know about you but I long for something pink and bubbly but I only get to do those for a few of my co-workers. Needless to say I find masculine cards to be a bit more of a challenge. Especially when you have elderly, young adult, teen and toddler to create for.
So today I made a card which I think any young adult male won't mind receiving. Not too frilly, just a little bit colorful and definitely nothing he will regret getting.

Nearing the end

Getting close to being done with my DD and I will confess to you all this has not been an easy month. I know I have mentioned a bad day before but honestly this has been a bad month. First my MIL passed away Jan 13th. When we left Oregon after Christmas she started her journey towards the end. My poor husband had to immediately turn around after we found out she wasn't improving. Very sad but a blessing for her since she had not been in very good health for years. After her death my FIL found himself at the hospital just days later and fortunately he is back home after a bout with what turned out to be the flu and now my dear poor husband has a hernia and needs surgery. I think I can officially say this has without a doubt been a bad month.

Well I didn't want this to be a pity party post but just that is has seriously been hard to feel creative and lets face it my mood has been on the somber side. I hope next month proves to be much better.

Here are the pages of Christmas Eve and Day which are from our trip to Oregon.

Skipping around DD

Well I finally am back to work on finishing my DD pages but decided to skip a few days and work from the end forward.

Today are days 22 and 23.

Day 23 we drove to Oregon so pretty much the pictures I took on the trip ended up on this page

I think I must have been craving some layout work since it's been so long and picked a full page to do a layout of a picture. Just noting that my Paperwhites bloomed. Have to say this was the page where the silhouette was having a bit of a fit. I was trying to cut a cursive title but the Cameo was having none of it so I changed the game plan to block letters and we worked things out and I was able to finish the page.

 



Hogs and Kisses

Have you ever had one of those days where everything seems to go wrong, that was my day or rather most of it on Saturday. I was working on my DD and was trying to cut a title from my silhouette but every time I cut it the paper either ripped or didn't cut completely.

I then decided to work on a birthday card for my father in law instead, but I choose to stamp and color a goat and lets say that it just was an ugly coloring of grey and I just wasn't feeling the love. Then I thought lets just try some water coloring well that turned into a blob of nothingness..sigh perhaps I should go bake a pie I wanted to try, seems easy enough.

I poured the filling into the shell and put it in the oven and then 20 minutes later I watched it bubble all over the rim of the pan and onto the bottom. While that wasn't too bad my husband came along and cranked up the oven to 450 not realizing my pie was still in there and yep you guessed it, it burned. Honestly at this point I was beyond frustrated, seriously enough with the bad mojo already.

I still wanted to feel like I could accomplish one little simple card, so I plugged forward and made another attempt at a birthday card for my father-in-law which was a much better result than the first time and then I tried using my silhouette one last time which it did work so I stopped there. I didn't want to push my luck because as I put away my copics they spilt all over the desktop, down the side, on the floor and at this point I figured enough was enough, time for bed. 

In A Holding Pattern

I haven't been able to find much time to focus and spend time being creative but didn't want to have a void post so thought I would comb through some projects or older cards to share. I did find however, these photos and thought I would share with you something my mother and I did over Mother's Day last year.

We went to the Filoli House to see the beautiful flower displays which are simply breathtaking. We were admiring many of them before we realized the displays were all designed around what we think were Musicals or Movies.

I took a few photos but didn't lug my Nikon with me so many photos are not quite up to par but I still wanted to share some of my favorites.

Alice In Wonderland

 

Cats 

 

 

This is also Cats but was done by a Girl Scout Troop

 

And here are some more done by Girl Scout Troops

 

Lion King

 

Little Shop of Horrors

 

 

Mary Poppins



 

My Fair Lady, they also had a whole table dedicated to this musical as well. 

 

Paint Your Wagon

 

Peter Pan

 

Sound of Music

 

South Pacific

 

Wicked

 

This house and grounds were used for many years as the home for Dynasty but has also been used for other movies like Rent, Wedding Planner, Joy Luck Club and George of the Jungle just to name a few. It's really an exquisite home.



Calming Jars

Today I have something a little different, today I am sharing Calming Jars. If you don't know what these are or have never heard of them parents and teachers use these as a tool to help calm kids down or when they are on time outs to help them remain still for a period of time.

I had never seen them or heard of them until my DD was mentioning them to me. I checked out her pintrest board and found this post which gave a pretty thorough instruction on how to make them.

Now since my DD stated she could not find the VOSS plastic water bottles I set out on a mission to make her some. Truthfully I think I am just avoiding finishing my DD.

I found my bottles mine at BevMo but did notice you can buy them online from Wal-Mart and obviously Amazon, but I didn't want to pay for shipping and whatever you do, do not go to CVS or Walgreens because despite VOSS's website that says they are sold there, they are not. At least not the ones in my area.

So I armed myself with the basics; glitter, corn syrup, food dye, hot water and a bottle then went ahead and added in some glue (just a few generous squirts, about 3.)

I used both fine and thick glitter on my first attempt (the blue one) to add some contrast. My second attempt (the purple) I used confetti along with the fine glitter and for my last attempt (orange) more confetti but I didn't have any Elmer's glue so I used Modge Podge which I decided I didn't care for and will probably redo.

 

Here the jars are separated. You can see that orange one is milky in appearance when it's separated.

 

And here they are all shaken. I really like the Purple and even the Blue one but the Orange looks dull in comparison.

So there you have it calming jars. These are just fun to play with on the table top and would be fun to have around the house, even for adults. I guess if you had a stressful job heck take one to work and have yourself a fun timeout.

Feeling Icky

While digging around in my stamp drawers and supplies looking for the right Thank you stamp from the previous post I spied two things I wanted to use

One this cute little monster stamp set from Technique Tuesday

  and two the gorgeous line of pp from Teresa Collins.

 

And here is my end result

 

 

I didn't have an immediate need for the card, but I guess it never hurts to have a get better soon card on hand.

 



Cards Continue

Finally getting some quiet time to myself I decided I wanted to make another watercolor card. My mother was looking for a Christmas card and Thank you card all rolled up into one so that was my motivation for this card.

Needless to say I am done and over Christmas so this card while was fun to make I just felt like I was making another Christmas card and that kind of bothered me. I really wanted to make some Valentines Day cards but sigh I didn't really need any since I made a plethora of them last year.

Cards with Envelopes

I was cleaning my room up for the empteenth time and found some templates for making envelopes as well as some liners. I realized I had forgotten I had these. I always think when I have nothing better to do I will make my own envelopes and I will line them and make them oh so pretty.

Well I guess I have never had nothing better to do because I have never ever once used these until now. I refuse to let another day go by without at least attempting to make my own envelopes. I had both stencil and instructions for Martha Stewart score board. I used both.

The stencil was easy enough, trace and cut. I had some 90lb water color paper I wanted to get rid of so decided to do use a few sheets just for that purpose. I was able to cut 3 at a time (just trace one). I didn't have a liner for this envelope so after assembly I just put them in my stash.

On to my next project the Martha Stewart score board instructions which uses 8.5 x 8.5 square. Easy enough to follow but I can only make one at a time. The other thing I didn't have was cheap cardstock so I only made one using some pretty thick cardstock from Papertrey Ink which I usually use for my cards. Lesson learned it's too thick so will keep my eye out for some cheap cardstock at Michaels.

My liners were from Paper Source and again just trace and cut but honestly I don't think I would really even need them for that. I will say the liner is the correct size, but Martha Stewarts instructions weren't because the envelope is a little too roomy for the 5.5 x 4.25 card it said it fit. (at least I think that's what size it said),

Once the envelope was completed I just needed a card to go inside. So here they are.

Thank Yous

Decided to take a bit of a break from my December Daily and make a couple of Thank You cards.

I see Valentines' goodies now everywhere I look so I was a bit enamored with the bright cherry colors and decided to use those in my projects as well as a few hearts.

Unfortunately at the base of this card you can't quite see the line embossing I did using the Martha Stewart score board card. But I think it elevates the card just a bit more that what is shown.

These little yellow hearts were embossed onto the card using a stencil that I made from some die cuts. I only wanted a few hearts from the die cut cluster so the best way to manage that was to die cut the whole cluster out and then just emboss over the ones I wanted.